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Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Star Rating

This one is 4 stars because it didn’t keep me up reading, but I still liked it. I would have liked to see Tris overcome her PTSD a little better and not freak out constantly. The idea that she couldn’t use a gun just wasn’t believable to me. The paintball guns didn’t affect her and they should have either affected her or helped her get over shooting Will.

The relationship between Tris and Tobias was done pretty well but wasn’t enjoyable because it was the crappy keep-secrets-and-drift-apart part of the relationship. Very believable and well-written, but again, not fun.

The plot was pretty cool. Divided factions, rise of the factionless, and an interesting ending.

Book Details

Insurgent by Veronica Roth is published by HarperCollins and released in 2012. Having reviewed, the first book, we decided to review the second book. The book is 544 pages and may have been just bit too long for the content.

Like in Divergent, the story is told from Tris’s point of view and is in present tense, which after reading Divergent, I am already accustomed to.

The novel’s premise

With the attack on Abnegation by the Erudite leaving most of the political leaders dead, Tris and Tobias must find a way to protect those around them in the midst of war.

Editing

Quality: High

I highlighted two obnoxious comma issues where the comma should not have been there. Other than being disrupted by these two commas, the book was pretty well edited.

Imagination and Uniqueness

I think she struggled to be imaginative in this book a little. She rode her imagination from Divergent, which fortunately had big enough shoulders to ride on.

The Erudite headquarters could have been described a bit better. A lot was left to my imagination, and fortunately I have a good one, which is why I like books better than some who don’t have their own huge imagination.

Characters

Beatrice Prior (Tris) is a no longer a simple character. She is a short blond girl who now struggles with PTSD. I still liked her, but I started to feel a hit of annoyance directed at her.

Tobias Eaton (Four), son of Marcus Eaton (the last living political leader) and Evelyn Johnson-Eaton (leader of the factionless) becomes a leader himself. He doesn’t trust his mother or father.

The side characters need some descriptive work. I am confused with Christina’s character. Sometimes she writes her like a pretty blond but she was described with short black hair and dark brown skin. I think she needs to do a better job with the side characters.

eBook Quality

Quality: Average

Except for one huge editing issue, the eBook was pretty good. Unfortunately the editing issue occurred over and over again. The problem was that every time a new section (chapter’s in Veronica Roth’s books seem to have sections) starts, there should be a divider. It could be a space, or a symbol or three asterisks *** or something. Unfortunately there was nothing. So the start of the new section was just the next paragraph. However, there is no indent at the start of a new section. So it looked like she had about 45 paragraphs missing an indent. Oops!

I almost dropped a star for this, but didn’t quite feel this eBook issue was bad enough to warrant a dropped star. If this issue isn’t fixed soon, I may come back and drop at least a half star.

About the Author

Veronica Roth is from Chicago, in fact, she and her husband still live there.

She studied creative writing at Northwestern University. While some who study creative writing, never learn to actually write a good book, she seems to have figured it out.

In an interview posted on GoodReads, Veronica said: “When I was 16, I would have chosen Candor.”